


Yes.

by SwordDraconis113



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demon Deals, F/F, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordDraconis113/pseuds/SwordDraconis113
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Friends, family, money. Sometimes even pets. They’re all temporary things.” She stops then, head turning to look at me. “Would you like to continue living?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Merry and Sierra who were a _major_ help in this. Originally for a final assignment for Summer Session at uni

Heels click outside my window, along the footpath. By the blaring green 3:00 a.m. on the bedside clock it can only be him. I stumble out of bed, my foot catching in the sheet, tugging me back in warning before I make it into the hall. He knocks, three loud beats, before I make it down to the front door. I stumble, fear locking my limbs and cast a cautious look to my parent’s room.

My mother’s snores can still be heard, vibrating through the bedroom door.

Breathing out, I quietly edge the last few steps and answer the front door, the wood creaking until I cringe. But my expression shifts when I see it’s not him standing behind it. It is, but it isn’t. He’s taken a new form, a woman this time and I stand back, surprised. First, I notice the thick, golden curls that drip over bare shoulders and down her back. The red material of her dress, tight against her curves, has me staring. It’s too bright for three in the morning. I’m not awake.

She pins me to the doorframe, hand on my chin tilting my head up as I blink at her. My head strikes the wood and I gasp, pained. “Payment time,” she whispers, a thumb stroking my bottom lip slowly, mocking me. Or teasing. I don’t know with him. Her. Damn.

Trembling beneath her, I stare, half expecting black or a red irises. But they’re blue, horribly, wonderfully blue. “Payment?” I echo. Somewhere, the word rings in my head and a picture of my sister’s smiling face appears, laughing.

“Mm. You haven’t forgotten have you?”

“No.” Of course not. Six months I’ve been waiting for this day, wondering if it’s tomorrow or in ten years. I had half expected him – her – to wait until I forgot. Maybe she grew impatient.

“Good.” She steps back, turning away to walk down the concrete steps.

“Where are you going?”

“We’re going on a walk. Unless you’d prefer to invite me in?” She looks at me from the corner of her eye, daring me to say yes, but I turn and shut the door. I don’t know how I would explain this to my parents. I don’t even know how I’d explain her.

My feet step onto the path and I wish I had shoes, but I can’t turn back now.

She falls back, walking beside me as if this isn’t rating high among the surreal moments of my life. “How’s life?” Her knuckles graze my wrist and a shiver slides down my spine. She’s warm, like a person.

“Good.” I swallow, wondering if the polite thing is to turn the question back on her. But when I open my mouth to ask her, the question is stuffed back into my throat. Dumbly, I swallow it back.

She steps onto the road and I follow, cringing as my toes clench uncomfortably on the asphalt, but she doesn’t care. She’s quiet, thinking, and a nervous tickle curls in my stomach.

“Do you enjoy living?” she asks me.

Moving forward, I wrap my arms around my body and focus on her spine. The dress drops down low in back, lower than her hair, exposing warm, golden skin over muscle. Why did she choose this form?

“Humans enjoy living, don’t they? They’re always appear…upset when separated from what they love.”

“Always?” I stall.

“They cry for ages about one thing or another. Irrelevant objects that hold sentimental value.” Her heels click, grinding against the gravel. “Friends, family, money. Sometimes even pets. They’re all temporary things.” She stops then, head turning to look at me. “Would you like to continue living?”

My throat becomes swollen before I stutter out, “C-can I?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

She pauses, a pink tongue sliding over her teeth as if she’s questioning the word before she smiles again. “Convince me not to kill you. Perhaps I am in a giving mood this evening.”

“Will you kill me anyway?” I gasp, hand slapping over my mouth, but her face pinches curiously.

“I wouldn’t be awfully convinced if I did.” She turns away. I catch up to her, clutching at my pyjamas pants as if they could hold the answer. They don’t.

“I don’t know how to convince you,” I tell her. “I…I love my sister, I want to be-“

“Wants are fleeting. Something sustainable, please.”

“I need to be there for her.”

“Why does she need you?”

“She…” an argument doesn’t come. “She…she doesn’t, I suppose.” It comes out as a whisper. Then, hopefully, “But she might. She might need me to hold her hand, or-or warn her about people, offer advice?”

“Question or statement?”

I try again, “There is a possibility-“

“Not enough.”

This time I spit out the words, “She will need me to look out for her. It’s my duty.”

“She has parents for that.” The anger dies and I hold my breath, watching her. Her chest rises and falls beneath the crimson material and I wonder: if I put my hand there, would I feel a heartbeat? “Giving up?” she asks.

“She needs me.”

The woman laughs, a warm, mocking laugh that breaks the night air. “You need her, my love. That’s why you brought her back.”

I shiver, folding my arms. My toes wiggle on the warm road, searching for something sustainable. “My parents needed her too.”

“And you, selflessly, couldn’t stand their sadness, so you came to me?” She’s definitely mocking me this time.

Her hands come up, around my cheek and hold me close. I wonder if she’ll kiss me again.

But her breath curls against my lips, and she doesn’t speak. She holds me there and I feel my stomach twist, hands shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes.”

“Liar. Cardinal sin; you’re distracted.” I don’t reply, but her fingertips dig into me.

“Yes.”

“Good girl.” She steps away, the warm hands falling to her sides and I feel cold. But she’s standing tall, looking up at the stars. “I think I might keep you,” she tells me. I feel my body hum at the statement. Her eyes catch mine and a grin break over her face. “I have a most interesting deal for you, would you like to hear it?” She asks as if I have a choice.

“Yes.”

Her head tilts, grin softening into a smirk. Whatever the question, I know my answer’s yes. It will always be yes.

“For every week your sister lives, and for as long as you live, I want something.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, there are many names for it, but because I’m feeling lazy this evening, let’s call it ‘life’.”

“Life?” My heart beats, loud and slow in my ears. “Mine?”

“Oh no, yours is hardly sustainable. No, there will be people, like you, who have made deals. Their time will come up for payment. I ask that you send them to me. Can you do that?”

“How?”

“However you want. Perhaps, if you’re good, I’ll give you a gift.” I have no idea what she means by good, but I think about my sister. About the hug she gave me and how tightly she clung.

“I admit,” she says, turning to lead me down to the through road, “I had expected one or two question about morality.”

“What do you mean?”

“‘Are they all innocent?’ ‘does it have to be me’ ‘will there be children?’ ‘is it murder?’” her voice changed, as though they had all been recorded; from a low, masculine voice, to the shrill feminine voice similar to my aunt, but it’s the last one that gets me. My sister’s. Her exact voice. I blink and the woman laughs, “Don’t look so afraid, I stole that one last year.”

“You’ve followed my sister?”

“Oh, you didn’t think all of this is an accident did you?” The woman smiles, her teeth white against the pink. Something hot slices through me, cutting until it finds my heart. Then, I understand as the knife twists.

“You-” I can’t manage the word. Glaring up at her, I think of the blood, the coughing and my sister’s pale hand. I want to lunge, to attack, but the anger washes over me and ties my body in knots. I can’t move, can’t speak, and god, I want to cry.

“Do we have a deal?”

“A deal?” I spit, glaring. But she knows my answer. I can put up a fight or run away, but somehow, someway I know that we will always end back here. “Fuck you.” Her grin only peels wider.

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

I stare at her stiffly, refusing, watching for her next move. Her index finger taps on the red dress and the word spills out like a command, “Yes.”


End file.
